551.35 – Geometry of Time, 2014
installation, lightbox, print on Samba canvas
Installation entitled 551.35 – Geometry of Time acquaints us with the concept of what might be called geometry of geopolitics. The installation consists of 35 selected maps which defined the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the last 551 years. Overlapping on a lit background, instead of showing distinct and clear borders, these maps evidence their shifts, deviations and instability caused by colonial, imperial, conquering, migrational, martial, as well as ‘peace-keeping’ redesigns. Monumentally conceived with a view to presenting ‘objective’ borders, this installation makes incursion into the geometry of the course of history, since the expected and distinct borders are replaced with a palimpsest of previously subjugated and thus forgotten truths. Palimpsest as a metaphor, transposed from the textual into the domain of visual, calls into question the very linearity of historical time, as well as political and, above all, military strategies of space organisation, thereby highlighting the repetitive patterns of creating (dis)continuous history and cyclicality of historical violence.
(Jelena Petrović)
Lana Čmajčanin (b. 1983, Bosnia and Herzegovina) lives and works between Sarajevo and Vienna. She has an MA from the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Sarajevo and is currently a PhD scholar at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Čmajčanin's artistic practice contains strong references to a specific place, addresses the issues of geopolitical mapping, political frameworks, and particularly the role of women and the female body. Furthermore, in her work, Lana explores the impact of political and social power structures and control mechanisms, questioning issues of responsibility and manipulation. She explores geopolitical and structural violence, the politics of memory, the practices of nationalist politics and the neoliberal management of trauma. Čmajčanin has participated in more than 100 international exhibitions and presented her work in numerous galleries and museums across the world.
Avtor fotografije: Damjan Švarc